How do I get started with Perl 6?

Notice the date on my answer. I'll leave it here, but it's not how the world is anymore. See raiph's answer.


I'd recommend using the latest monthly release of parrot from either the Parrot site or the parrot release on CPAN. I've found that sometimes the latest stuff in trunk/ doesn't work for whatever reason. That's just to get started.

Once you're started and brave enough, the bleeding edge stuff might be more appropriate. The Parrot download page has the repository details.

Note, however, that you shouldn't install parrot. Unless they've fixed this since last I looked, having parrot installed messes up the build process. Make it in it's source directory, but don't use the install target. You can still build languages/perl6 and create the perl6 target and install that where you like.

I gave up on Pugs because installing the latest GHC was always such a pain. I haven't looked at it for awhile though, but every new Pugs release seems to require a GHC upgrade. Maybe that's more sane now.


After my first visit to the #perl6 at irc.freenode.org, I got the following answers to the same question:

  • Perl 5 to Perl 6
  • Advent calendar
  • Synopses
  • RFCs
  • Rakudo book

I would recommend to use monthly Rakudo Star releases: http://rakudo.org/downloads/star Rakudo Star includes Rakudo Perl 6, MoarVM, panda and some Perl 6 modules. The February 2015 release will be the last one to include the parrot VM.